Clothes rack



Oct. 16, 1962 L. BRYLSKI 3,058,599

CLOTHES RACK Filed July 18, 1960 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Fig. 3

Fig. 4

27 Fig. 5

a 705 I? 707 B United States Patent ()fiice 3,058,599 Patented Oct. 16, 1 962 3,058,599 CLOTHES RACK Lukas Brylski, Muhldorfer Strasse 10, Altotting, Upper Bavaria, Germany Filed July 18, 1960, Ser. No. 43,547 Claims priority, application Germany July 20, 1959 6 Claims. (Cl. 211-168) The present invention relates to clothes racks, and more particularly to a clothes rack of the type which is especially suited to serve as a support for a large number of garments and which is equally useful in a home as well as in public institutions, such as theaters, schools, restaurants and others.

An object of the invention is to provide a clothes rack which is constructed and assembled in such a way that the individual garment hangers forming part thereof will automatically move to a position of rest in which the garments are neatly stacked in parallelism with each other.

Another object of the invention is to provide a clothes rack of the'just outlined characteristics which is constructed in such a Way that the garments supported on its hangers will remain in parallelism with each other when the hangers are moved to a position for removal of garments as well as when the hangers assume a position to keep the garments out of an attendants way.

A further object of the invention is to provide a very simple and inexpensive clothes rack which may be readily installed directly on a wall as well as on suitable stands, and which may embody suitable hat supports which are then installed in such a way as to provide ready access to the hats and not to impede an attendants work in connection with storing and/or removal of garments from the hangers.

An additional object of the invention is to provide a clothes rack of the above described type which comprises garment hangers of novel design enabling an attendant The novel features which are considered as characteristic for the invention are set forth in particular in the appended claims. The invention itself, however, both as to its construction and its method of operation, together with additional objects and advantages thereof, will be best understood from the following detailed description of certain specific embodiments when read in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a front elevational view of a clothes rack embodying one form of my invention with the stand partly broken away;

FIG. 2 is a side elevational view of the clothes rack with a portion of the stand and of the mirror broken away;

FlG. 3 is a top plan view of the rack showing a larger number of garment hangers and hat racks;

FIG. 4 is a front elevational view of a modified clothes rack; and

FIG. 5 is a prespective View of a detail.

Referring now in greater detail to the illustrated embodiments, and first to FIG. 1, there is shown a clothes rack CR which comprises a substantially V-shaped carrier or hanger support 1, the latter having its rear ends 6 fixed to the upper ends of legs 3 forming part of a stand S (see FIG. 2) by any suitable fastening means, e.g. by screws 2 which pass through unnumbered slots formed in the rear ends 6 of the carrier 1 (see FIG. 1). The carrier to rapidly and conveniently open or close each garment hanger in order to suspend a garment thereon or to remove a garment.

With the above objects in view, the invention resides in the provision of a clothes rack which comprises essentially a substantially V-shaped carrier including two forwardly and upwardly converging portions defining a tip which is located at a level above the level of the rear ends of the carrier portionsya plurality of garment hangers, and an arm for each garment hanger, these garment supporting arms being pivotally suspended on one or both portions of the carrier in such a way that their pivot axes are at least slightly inclined downwardly and forwardly whereby each arm will automatically tend to pivot the hanger suspended thereon in a direction away from the forward end of the carrier. If desired, only one portion of the V-shaped carrier may be formed with means for pivotally supporting the arms, and the carrier may support or may be integrally formed with suitable stop means which will arrest the 'arms in two spaced positions in each of which the garment hangers suspended thereon are parallel with each other. In such manner, one prevents contact of garments with a wall or with each other and, in addition, a large number of garment hangers may be supported on each portion of the V-shaped carrier. The

latter may be mounted directly on a wall or on a suitable stand whose leg or legs may carry a mirror which is then pivotable to a position in which its image reflecting surface is not concealed by the garments.

According to a feature of my invention, the V-shaped carrier may support a series of suitably configurated hat supports which extend upwardly therefrom and preferably assume the form of circularly bent wires which are disposed in substantially horizontal planes and whose rearwardly bent stems are anchored in the carrier.

is preferably of U-shaped cross-sectional contour and may be manufactured of suitable metallic stock though it is equally possible to utilize wood or a synthetic plastic material.

The flanges 1a, 1b of the carrier 1 are formed with aligned coaxial bores 4, 5, respectively, for pivot members 13 whose purpose will be described hereinafter. As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the rear ends 6' of the V- shaped carrier 1, i.e. those ends of the carrier which are closer to a wall (not shown) or to the upright legs 3 of the stand S, are located at a level below the forward end or tip 7 of the carrier. Thus, and provided that the pivot members 13 are perpendicular to the planes of the flanges 1a, 1b, these pivot members will be inclined with respect to a vertical direction, their inclination depending on the inclination of the carrier 1 in a direction upwardly from the legs 3 toward its tip 7. Alternately, the inclination of the pivot members 13 need not depend solely upon the inclination of the carrier 1 but may be controlled by drilling the cooperating bores 4, 5 at a given angle other than degrees with respect to the planes of the flanges 1a, 1b. It will be readily understood that the pivot members 13 will be inclined even though the pivot members in the left-hand portion 1A of the carrier 1 are arranged symmetrically with respect to the pivot members in the right hand carrier portion 13.

The pivot members 13 support outwardly extending garment supporting arms 8 whose outer ends are preferably bent in downward direction, as at 9, and each of these downwardly extending ends 9 supports a garment hanger broadly identified by the reference numeral 10. If desired, the pivot members 13 may be fully vertical in which event the bores 11, 12 in the rear ends of arms 8 (see FIG. 5) are inclined from vertical so that the arms will hang downwardly from the points of their connection with the carrier 1, as illustrated in FIG. 2. Owing to the inclination of pivot members 13,.each garment hanger 10 will necessarily change its inclination when the respective arm is pivoted. It is preferred to select the inclination of the arms 8 in such a way that the garment hangers 10 supported thereon will be held in a horizontal position when the respective arms are swung midway between the position of FIG. 1, i.e. close to the wall or to the rear end of the carrier 1, and the position of arm 8 shown in FIG. 3, i.e. when the garment hangers are ready to receive a garment or are in a position enabling an attendant to conveniently remove a garment therefrom. This insures that the weight of garments supported by the hangers 10 is shifted only little when the arms 8 are swung between their respective end positions. In other words, in its median position, each arm 8 should hold the respective garment hanger 10 in such manner that the two inclined coat supporting portions 16, 16a should be arranged symmetrically with respect to a vertical line passing through the downwardly oriented end portion 9 of the respective arm. Alternately, each garment hanger 10 may assume a horizontal position when its arm assumes the position 8" shown in FIG. 3. It will be noted that the hangers 10 are located in the planes of their respective arms 8.

Owing to the forward and downward inclination of the pivot members 13, the arms 8 tend to pivot automatically away from the carriers forward end 7, i.e. to the end position of FIG. 1, as soon as released by the hand of an attendant. The carrier 1 is formed with or mounts suitable stop means which arrest the arms 8 in' each of their end positions. In FIG. 1, such stop means consist of substantially vertical lateral walls 14, bounding each of the openings 1d provided in the web or base 1c of the carrier, one of such openings 1d being provided for each pivot member 13 so that the arms 8 may extend therethrough. The position of stop means 14 is selected in such a way that, when the arms reach their rearmost position in which they are adjacent to the wall (see the arms 8" in FIG. 3), they are preferably parallel with each other and are also parallel with the wall, i.e. in FIG. 3 the arms 8" are parallel with the common plane of the legs 3. This prevents the arms from coming into actual contact with the wall and from eventually soiling the garments suspended thereon; in addition, if the arms 8 are parallel in their end positions 8", the garments suspended thereon are uniformly spaced from each other and the carrier 1 may accommodate a large number of garment hangers. Furthermore, if the garments suspended on the hangers 10 are wet, their drying is facilitated if the hangers are uniformly spaced from each other.

Analogously, it is preferred to select the position of stop means 15 in such a way that the hangers 10 will again remain parallel with each other when the arms 8 assume the end positions corresponding to that of the arm 8 shown in FIG. 3.

In one of its preferred forms, each garment hanger 10 consists of two suitably deformed pieces of wire or sheet metal strips 16A and 17A. At one longitudinal end of a hanger 10, the coat supporting portions 16a, 17a of the wires 16A, 17A are bent into the form of an eye 18 which receives a pivot member 19, the latter articulately supporting one end of a composite transverse connecting member 20A consisting of parallel wires 20, 21. The other end 23 of the connecting member 20A is receivable in a hook shaped retaining element 22 formed by the ends of coat supporting portions 16, 17 of the wires 16A, 17A, respectively. The retaining element 22 is formed with a transversely bent terminal 24 which constitutes a simple lock and prevents unintentional removal of the end 23 from the retaining element 22.

In addition to the bores 4, 5, the flanges 1a, 1b of the carrier 1 are formed with bores 25 adapted to receive the stems 26 of bat supporting members 27. In its preferred form, each hat support 27 assumes a circular shape and its stem 26 is preferably bent in forward direction with the hat support maintained in a substantially horizontal plane whereby a hat suspended on the support can be readily reached by an attendant.

As shown, the hat supports and their stems may consist of a metallic wire. It is equally possible to mount the stems 26 in such a way that they can rotate in their respective bores 25 so that the carrier 1 may support a 4. large number of hats some of which will be moved to the rear by suitable angular displacement of the stems 26.

One of the legs 3 supports a pivotable horizontal bracket 28a which in turn pivotally mounts a receptacle 28 for a mirror 29, the latter being pivotable into a position beneath the carrier 1 or into the position of FIG. 3 in which its reflecting surface is not concealed even if the carrier should support a large number of garments. The lower ends of the legs 3 are formed with horizontal plate like end portions or pedestals 30 which hold the clothes rack CR against tilting.

FIG. 4 illustrates a modification of the invention according to which the V-shaped carrier 101 is formed with a left-hand portion 101A identical with the portion 1A of FIG. 1, and with a right-hand portion 101B which does not carry any garment supporting arms. This rack may be installed in a corner where a rack of the type shown in FIG. 1 could not be put to full use. The angle enclosed by the carrier portions 101A, 101B need not be as large as the angle between the carrier portions 1A, 1B. Otherwise, the construction of the carrier 101 is the same as that of the carrier 1, i.e. the forward end 107 is again at a level above the rear end 106 which is connected to a stand, not shown, or directly to a wall.

In a theater, restaurant, sports arena, school or other public institution, a large number of clothes racks of the type shown in FIGS. 1-3 or 4 may be arranged in a series of rows so that they may accommodate a very large number of garments while permitting ready access to the individual garments.

Without further analysis, the foregoing will so fully reveal the gist of the present invention that others can, by applying current knowledge, readily adapt it for various applications without omitting features that, from the standpoint of prior art, fairly constitute essential characteristics of the generic and specific aspects of this invention and, therefore, such adaptations should and are intended to be comprehended within the meaning and range of equivalence of the following claims.

What is claimed as new and desired to be secured by Letters Patent is:

1. A clothes rack comprising, in combination, a substantially V-shaped carrier comprising two forwardly and upwardly converging portions defining a tip, at least one of said carrier portions formed with a plurality of spaced openings each bounded by two lateral walls; a plurality of pivot members having forwardly and downwardly inclined axes and mounted in said one carrier portion so as to be accessible through said openings; and a plurality of garment supporting arms each pivotally mounted on one of said pivot members and extending through the respective opening in a direction away from said one carrier portion, said arms pivotable about the respective pivot members between two spaced positions in each of which the arms are parallel with each other and in each of which the arms abut against a different wall of the respect1ve opening.

2. A clothes rack comprising, in combination, a substantially V-shaped carrier comprising two forwardly and upwardly converging portions defining a tip, at least one of said carrier portions formed with a plurality of spaced openings each bounded by two lateral walls; a plurality of pivot members substantially perpendicular to the plane of said carrier and mounted in said one carrier portion so as to be accessible through said openings; and a plurality of garment supporting arms each having an end formed with forwardly and downwardly inclined bore means receiving one of said pivot members and extend ing through the respective opening in a direction away from said one carrier portion, said arms pivotable about the respective pivot members between two spaced positrons in each of which the arms are parallel with each other and in each of which the arms abut against a different wall of the respective opening.

3. A clothes rack comprising, in combination, a fixed substantially V-shaped carrier of U-shaped cross-sectional contour including two spaced flanges and a web facing outwardly and formed with spaced openings each bounded by two lateral walls; and a plurality of garment supporting arms each having an end extending inwardly through one of said openings and each comprising a pivot member at said end thereof, said pivot members journalled in said flanges and each thereof inclined forwardly and downwardly, said arms pivotable about their pivot members between two spaced end positions in each of which said arms are substantially parallel with each other and in each of which said arms abut against a different lateral wall of the respective opening.

4. A clothes rack comprising, in combination, a carrier having a plurality of spaced openings each bounded by two lateral walls; a pivot member for each of said openings, said pivot members having forwardly and downwardly inclined axes and mounted in said carrier behind the respective openings; and a garment-supporting arm mounted on and pivotable about the axis of the respective pivot member between a first .and a second end position in each of which the arm abuts against a different Wall of the respective opening.

5. A clothes rack as set forth in claim 4, wherein said carrier is substantially V-shaped and includes two forwardly and upwardly converging portions each of which has a plurality of openings, the arms supported by each of said carrier portions being substantially parallel with each other in each end position thereof.

6. A garment hanger as set forth in claim 4, wherein said carrier has a forward end and a rear end, said rear end located at a level below said forward end.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 451,911 Boone May 12, 1891 615,918 Smith Dec. 13, 1898 928,292 Walsh July 20, 1909 1,251,062 Lough Dec. 25, 1917 1,387,765 Colonna Aug. 16, 1921 1,732,162 Griner Oct. 15, 1929 1,839,607 Slauson Ian. 5, 1932 1,899,942 Clafiin Mar. 7, 1933 2,061,156 Humphrey Nov. 17, 1936 2,220,189 Wolters Nov. 5, 1940 2,561,045 Belefant July 17, 1951 FOREIGN PATENTS 791,521 Great Britain Mar. 5, 1958 

